Sunday, March 11, 2012

I didn't have a choice in the whole being Catholic thing. When I was just a couple of weeks old, a priest poured some water over my head and now, 30+ years later, Catholics still claim I am one of them even though I never chose it. Some of them are rather condescending, even arrogant about it. "You know this is the only real religion" they sometimes say.

When I was 16, I stopped going to Mass despite the warnings that if I didn't go, I'd risk my soul burning in hell for eternity. The ridiculous part of this was the person who was the most vocal about this was our priest who regularly had his "friend" over for a game of "hide the salami" after Mass and allegedly solicited local gay men for sex on a regular basis.

I dabbled for a little while in other religions, trying to "find my way" as the cliche goes. Going and sitting in that church every Sunday does give one some sense of solace in a mad world, if you're willing to turn off your brain and not question anything. These days, I consider myself somewhere between an agnostic and a very liberal Jew but you're not going to find me anywhere near temple either.

I came back again for a short period of time in my early 20's, just to see if as an adult, I could be treated as one by the same judgmental lot I had previously despised as a kid. It didn't get any better and I finally called it quits a few months later. Don't get me wrong, I'll still go for special occasions like weddings or some family event but you'll never catch me there more than once a year which is just to be polite.

It took me quite some time to finally undo the years of indoctrination and sometimes, I think the embedded guilt will never be fully conquered.

For me, they don't have all of the answers, no religion does. I've learned that in life, asking someone to give you the answers is intellectually lazy and a recipe for disaster. Even somehow through the course of my experiences, I were to find that the "true faith" was Catholicism, I could never go back to a church that allowed a priest to rail against "sins" that he was committing before or after the very service in which he condemned others for the same offense. I could never forgive a church that allowed the leader of their Knights of Columbus group, someone who was considered a pillar of the community, to molest kids in his basement office while his wife chatted with the victim's parents upstairs and never try to stop him.

I'll never stop having respect for those who consider themselves to be Christians, Catholics, or whatever and actually concentrate on what the religion was originally supposed to be about. However, until the day comes when the message goes back to taking care of the poor and outcast instead of the pathological obsession with people's sexual habits and controlling their lives, count me out.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Yesterday morning, I awoke to see Twitter blowing up about the death of Andrew Breitbart. At 0854 CST, I posted the following: " Dying of "natural causes" at 43 in this case means God decided someone needed to shut the fuck up, forever. #Breitbart"

The shitstorm erupted shortly afterwards. Now, I am not normally one to speak ill of the dead although I don't understand why kicking the bucket somehow absolves you of your transgressions and makes you off-limits to the same abuse you dished out during your lifetime. This is especially true for Breitbart. As one of my fans said "To those who gave no quarter, none shall be given."

I fully expect people to talk shit about me when I am dead, it is fair game.

I decided to post the meme here as well since I am sure enough of Breitbart's fans will report it to Facebook and get it removed.